A Beautiful Dark

pleased—”
    “But they should expect it, right? You’re a Rebel.”
    He flashed a dazzling smile. “They might expect it, but they will definitely not like it. Anyway, I don’t care. Not anymore. I want to be with you. We can go skiing. Or just sit outside. I don’t care. Let’s just go do something.”
    It sounded so appealing, but . . .
    “I can’t. Not right now. Cassie is with me. At least until Devin is finished working on her car.”
    “Devin is working on her car?” he repeated, his smile vanishing.
    “Yeah, the engine died. She doesn’t have the money for the repairs, and he offered to fix it for her.”
    He furrowed his brow. “Why would he do that?”
    “Because he’s being nice?”
    He shook his head. “No. It doesn’t work that way. He has no free will. He can do only what the Order tells him to.”
    Not true! I’d wanted to shout. He’d let me sleep in his bed. That was him, not the Order, who wanted me there.
    “You can’t trust him, Skye. If he’s messing with her car—”
    “He’s not messing with it. He’s fixing it.”
    “Not unless the Order told him to. And why would they do that?”
    “Maybe they want him on my good side. To influence me to choose them? I don’t know. He’s doing us a favor.”
    “You just don’t get it. Something’s not right about this. I need to find out what’s going on.”
    “I think you’re overreacting. You’re just trying to make him out to be the bad guy.”
    “I hope you’re right.”
    With a final look at me, he walked away. My heart sank. Why couldn’t things just be normal between us, for once?
    “Okay,” Cassie said, coming up behind me. “Since I don’t have to pay for car repairs, I’m buying two new tops and springing for frozen yogurt.”
    As we sat at a small table in the food court, I could almost pretend that we were back in the pre-angel days, when everything was so much simpler.
    On our way to the car, swinging our bags, that’s when it happened to me for the first time.
    The clouds swept in so suddenly, covering the parking lot in darkness even though it was still early evening. I wavered and then pitched forward, falling hard against the concrete. “Skye?” I heard Cassie calling as if from far, far away. “Skye!”
    And then I couldn’t hear her anymore. It was so black that I couldn’t see a thing. The wind howled and the ground moved underneath me as if it was liquid. And then it all stopped.
    I wasn’t in the parking lot. I was on the ground still, but nowhere near where I’d been only minutes before. The clouds had dissolved into a cold blue sky, and I lay on my back, staring at the lush, green leaves on the soaring trees above and the verdant forest surrounding me. I wasn’t in Colorado anymore. That was the first thing I noticed.
    The second thing I became aware of was a voice, calling my name from somewhere above me. “Cassie?” I tried to say, but it was like when you try to talk in a dream and you can’t make any sound come out. But it wasn’t Cassie’s voice, I soon learned. No.
    It was Asher’s.
    “Skye?” He was shouting. “Skye? Stay with me. . . .”
    “Asher?” I tried to say, but the same thing happened to my voice again. “Asher? I want to. I want to stay with you. Please. Help me.” Nothing came out. “Help me!”
    His face swam in and out of focus, and I noticed cuts and bruises that I’d never seen before. “Are you okay?” I tried to ask.
    “We’re going to find help. We’ll be okay, now that we’re here. They’ll help us. They want you to live.”
    Then the sun grew bright, too bright, washing out everything around me. “Asher!” I yelled. “Don’t go!” But I knew he couldn’t hear me.
    And before I knew it, I was back on the blacktop of the parking lot at the mall, heaving forward as if I might be sick.
    “Skye!” Cassie was kneeling beside me. “Are you okay? You just passed out, like, in the middle of the parking lot! Are you still hung over? Do you need something else to eat?”
    “No,” I said, trying to move. Cassie gave me her arm, and I leaned against her as I stood. “I’m fine.” Was I fine, though? What had I just seen? What had happened to me?
    “Come on,” she said soothingly. “Let’s get you home.”

Chapter 33

    A s Cassie drove, I leaned back against the leather seat and closed my eyes. I knew the past twenty-four hours had been too good to be true, too easy to forget about what was really happening to me. Had the